


let's take the steps again

by winter_hiems



Category: X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men - All Media Types, X-Men Legacy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Magical Girls, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Angst with a Happy Ending, Autistic David Haller, Canon Autistic Character, Canon Disabled Character, Canon Jewish Character, Childhood Trauma, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Crack and Angst, Dark Magic, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Don't copy to another site, F/M, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Light Angst, Magic, Magical Girls, Mental Health Issues, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Trauma, mild crack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:08:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26531875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winter_hiems/pseuds/winter_hiems
Summary: Ruth used to be a magical girl. She had a magic sword and a frilly costume. When she finally defeated the Powers of Darkness, she thought that was it. She got on with her life.Twelve years later, the Darkness rises again. This is nothing new. It’s a twelve-year cycle that’s been going on for as long as anyone can remember. Except that this time, no new heroes emerge to fight it.It seems that Ruth is going to have to get back into the superhero game. But she’s not going to do it alone. She gets help from her ex-nemesis, once the Vessel for the Powers of Darkness, now a reclusive artist with bucketloads of PTSD: David Haller.
Relationships: Ruth Aldine/David Haller
Kudos: 5





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: this chapter contains a brief mention of suicide, and a brief mention of past self-harm. These are in no way central to the story and are each only mentioned once.

Ruth had to be the only person who was both completely blind and had a driving licence. It had taken a while to get it granted, but in the end she’d been able to prove that, yes, a birth defect had left her completely without eyes, but, yes, magical fairies had granted her the ability to see in return for saving the world from the Powers of Darkness. 

She wasn’t sure if it had been a good trade. 

Sure, most twelve-year-old girls would give a left arm for the chance to be chosen as the new Vessel for the Powers of Light. Superpowers and celebrity status and all that. The Powers of Light had chosen her because she was quirky – their definition, not Ruth’s – which just meant that she had a stammer. So then she had superpowers that could be turned on or off by saying magic words, and the ability to see despite her complete lack of eyes, and the responsibility of fighting the Vessel of the Powers of Darkness. 

Being the Vessel of the Powers of Darkness didn’t have any of the perks that came with the Powers of Light. Mainly because the Powers of Darkness didn’t believe in little things like mental autonomy, or eating, or sleep. 

After Ruth had defeated the Vessel, he’d passed out from sheer exhaustion. 

Only later, when he’d woken up in hospital, had she found out who he was. 

The Powers of Light liked their Vessels quirky; the Powers of Darkness liked Vessels that were outcasts. David Haller was a Romani Jewish autistic boy with dissociative identity disorder. He’d been in a mental institution since the age of six. Perfect. 

It had taken only a few words exchanged between her and David after he woke up for Ruth to realise that he wasn’t a bad person. Not even a little. And, deciding that just because she didn’t have superpowers anymore didn’t mean that she couldn’t still help people, she decided she’d be there for him. 

She was there when he was admitted to a mental health clinic for treatment for DID and severe PTSD, and she was there five years later when they let him out. 

Ruth’s life had calmed down a lot since she’d defeated the Darkness and lost all her powers except the ones that allowed her to see. She still got the occasional autograph request, but she was twenty-four now, and the slim, tired-looking woman she’d become didn’t much resemble the cutesy twelve-year-old she’d once been. 

David’s life hadn’t really done that. It seemed that vitriolic hate could last a long time. All his mail went through a scanner, in case someone decided he needed punishing for what the Darkness had done when it was riding his body around like a puppet. 

After over half an hour of driving with thick woodland to either side, Ruth pulled her car into David’s turning, got out, keyed in the code at the gate, and drove up to the house. 

Inside the perimeter fence, there weren’t many trees. David wasn’t overly fond of shadows. 

The house was large and modern and angular, with floor-to-ceiling windows that let in plenty of light; an artist’s house. David had a PhD in astrophysics, but nobody wanted to employ the ex-Vessel of a malevolent fae entity. He could have lived off his father, but instead David chose to pay his way through his paintings. 

Every single review of his art exhibitions said that his work was breathtaking. 

Every single review mentioned the Darkness, as if that was David’s sole reason for putting beautiful, heart-wrenching art into the world. 

Ruth had a key, so she let herself in. Besides, David was expecting her. 

She found him sitting by the fireplace in the living room, where he was throwing letters into the fire. 

“More hate mail?” David was the only person she didn’t stammer around. They shared an experience that few other people on the planet had lived through. 

“Yeah,” he replied softly. “With the anniversary coming up so soon, everyone starts to remember again. Some of the death threats are really creative.” 

“They’ll leave you alone once there’s a new Vessel.” 

“Maybe.” 

Ruth sat down in the chair across from him. “I wonder who it’ll be this time around. It’s gonna be so strange, seeing someone on TV with my powers.” 

David nodded. “I’ve been thinking… once the Darkness gets defeated again, maybe I could help the poor sod who’ll get chosen as a Vessel this time around. Like a mentor, kind of. Because I’ve already survived it. Or mostly survived it.” 

There was a rumour that former Vessels of the Powers of Darkness were cursed to die within a year after their defeat. This rumour was false. It was simply that most ex-Vessels for the Darkness took their own lives or were murdered as retribution for the Darkness’ actions. 

The only other living member of the Darkness was sixty, and he was held in a secure mental facility where he couldn’t hurt himself or anyone else. 

Compared to his predecessors, David was a success story, which was saying something. He had few friends and nobody outside his immediate friends and family knew where he lived. His art was exhibited across three continents, but he himself never travelled. There had been a few girlfriends, but only two, and none right now. 

He saw a therapist once a week. 

He still had nightmares. 

There were a series of years-old parallel white scars on the inside of his forearms that neither David nor Ruth ever mentioned. 

“I went to your exhibition,” she told him. “It was amazing.” 

“You know, if you ever want to look at my art, you don’t need to go to an exhibition. You know where I live.” He glanced at her with those gorgeous one-blue, one-green eyes. 

_Yes_ , Ruth could have replied, _I want to visit you more often. But it wouldn’t work out because you used to be my nemesis, and I’ve been in love with you for years, but you haven’t noticed, and you could definitely, definitely do better. And it was torture watching you date your two exes not just because they weren’t me but because of how they treated you, and how you deserved better and I want to give you better, but you don’t think you deserve it. And besides, if you actually got out of the house for once you’d find a woman in an instant, you beautiful fucking catch._

But instead she said: “Can I see your studio, then?” 

David stood. “Sure, just don’t touch anything in there; I have it exactly how I need it.” 

So he let her in and she looked around, at the halfway-done paintings on easels and the finished pieces leaning against the wall, and at the large clay sculpture in the centre of the room. David wasn’t much one for sculpture, but he did sometimes branch out into it when the mood took him. 

Ruth looked down at it, painted green and flailing. 

“It’ll look better once it’s been glazed,” said David. 

“Tentacles, huh?” she asked. 

“Yeah, and if any reviewer so much as mentions that prick Lovecraft in any comment on it then I’m going to post them a photo of me with both my middle fingers up, and call it artistic expression.” 

“You could make an art exhibition out of that.” 

David gave her a small smile. All his smiles were small. Ruth wondered how genuine joy might look on his face, and thought that she’d probably never find out. 

“I’m not much of a photographer,” he said. “I mean, not crappy, but it’s not really my style.” 

Ruth knew what David’s favourite style was. 

Great dark sweeping brushstrokes across the canvas, but over that, lighter colours in tiny points. Stars in the darkness. 

When you looked at the painting from a distance you could see the whole picture; a person or a landscape or a blazing nebula, but Ruth liked to get close to them, and look at the stars her friend had made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I was thinking about ‘What happens when you used to be a magical girl?’ and this is what I came up with. Bonus points for David being Ruth’s nemesis like in the comics.
> 
> I thought a lot about why David and Ruth would be considered Vessels, especially the ethics of it. How does Ruth feel about the fact that she’s been almost fetishized by the Powers of Light because of her disability and her stammer? How does David feel about the fact that the Darkness chose him because of his ethnicity and mental illness? It’s intentionally messed-up.
> 
> Yes, the title of this fic is from the song Caramelldansen. No, I don’t really have justification for this.
> 
> Comments and kudos are always welcome <3
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own the characters. I am not making money from this work.


	2. Chapter 2

It was the Day of the Choosing. 

On this exact day twelve years ago, a pink-winged fairy named Megan had appeared to Ruth to announce that she had been chosen as the latest Vessel for the Powers of Light in the eternal struggle against the Powers of Darkness. 

Megan had explained her powers and how they worked, and Ruth had been given sight, and then she was sent off for her first battle against a twelve-year-old boy with long black hair. 

Today, Megan would be talking to a different girl. 

There was a crash outside the front of Ruth’s house. 

She put down her coffee and opened the front door. 

David was getting out of a black car that had been hastily parked in her driveway – so hastily that he’d accidentally knocked over her trashcan. 

The car looked okay. The trashcan was slightly dented. 

She hadn’t even known that David had a car. 

Ruth’s first instinct was embarrassment, because her house had peeling paint and faded curtains and probably wasn’t a tenth the price of David’s, but the embarrassment went away instantly and was replaced by worry when she saw what he was wearing. 

He was in his suit. The suit he’d worn twelve years ago; long and close-fitting and made of liquid shadow. 

“David?” 

He was white-faced with panic. “It’s me. I don’t know why happened, but the Darkness came to take me over. It didn’t go for a new Vessel, it went for an old one. It had me long enough to change my clothes, but I managed to throw it off. I – I was in its head, Ruth. It’s going after a kid, its second choice, a new Vessel. We have to stop it.” 

Ruth could have told him that nobody had ever been able to prevent a Vessel from being chosen before. But she didn’t. Instead, she got in the car. 

His driving was well over the speed limit. Ruth fastened her seatbelt and tried not to stare at David too hard. 

His suit was slit in a v-shape almost to his navel. Twelve years ago, it had shown off the emaciated ridges of his ribs. Today, all it showed was that apparently David worked out. 

“How are we going to stop it?” Ruth asked. 

“No idea,” said David. “All I know is that I can’t abandon some poor kid to what I lived through.” 

They knew they were getting close when they saw people running away. 

It was almost the centre of the city; a wide, multi-lane street that was free of cars because anyone in a car had enough sense to drive away from the writhing mass of shadow that hovered about half a mile away from where David parked. 

“Ruth,” said David, as they got out of the car, “I don’t have any powers. But I have this theory; I think you might. If the Darkness wanted its old Vessel, then the Light probably went for that too. For balance.” 

Ruth stared at the Darkness at the end of the street and felt very human. “But I don’t feel any different.” 

“Did you feel any different the last time you got given your powers?” 

“… No. But surely Megan would have turned up?” 

“She only appeared to you before to explain how your powers worked. You already know that now; she wouldn’t need to tell you.” 

“Okay. I’ll try.” 

Ruth planted her feet and stuck her hand in the air, reaching for something beyond existence. 

Nothing happened. 

“I think you might have to say it,” said David. “You know, the thing.” 

“Oh,” said Ruth, “It’ll make me feel so stupid.” 

But she said it anyway. 

She, an adult woman with a job and student loans, planted her feet, put her right hand in the air, palm splayed, and yelled: “SPARKLE PRINCESS POWER!” 

There was a blaze of white light that lifted her into the air. Her outfit changed into something white and silver and moderately frilly, and in her right hand she held a silver sword. 

“Thank fuck,” said David. “I didn’t really have a plan if that didn’t work.” 

The Darkness had noticed Ruth’s lightshow. It started moving towards them. 

“Get out of the way,” said Ruth. 

David moved off to the side of the street. A human wouldn’t have a chance against the Darkness. 

*

As the Darkness got closer, David could see a figure within it. A boy, thin, a little small for his age. Dark hair. 

Just like David had been all those years ago. 

He wished that he couldn’t remember the way it had felt for the Darkness to take him over, but he did. An all-consuming violation of his mind and body, followed by nearly a year of watching the atrocities the Darkness committed, unable to move his body of his own accord, until he was standing in front of a girl with no eyes who wore a silver suit, feeling worse than he’d ever felt before, and he’d collapsed, but it had felt like his choice to collapse because the Darkness was gone. 

As Ruth stepped up to fight the Darkness, it occurred to David that somewhere inside that Vessel there was a scared kid who couldn’t control what was happening to him. 

David stepped out of the sideroad where he’d been crouching, took a few steps onto the main street like a man walking to his execution. “Take me,” he said simply. 

The Darkness cleared around the Vessel until it looked at him with solid black eyes. Its voice was a rasp. “What?” 

“You wanted me first, right? Why settle for your second choice when you can have me? I promise not to throw you off this time.” 

The Vessel cocked its head to one side. “You would offer yourself as Vessel. Why?” 

Ruth cried, “David, you can’t!” and David knew that if he looked at her he might reconsider, so he didn’t even though he wanted to. His alters were angry too, threatening to take him over, but this was his decision, not theirs. His choice to throw himself to the Darkness. 

He swallowed. “Because I’ve already survived this once. I can survive it again. And because I’m an adult and he’s fucking _twelve_.” 

“David…” breathed Ruth. 

This time, he did look at her. “Just promise to visit me in hospital once this is over, yeah?” And then the Darkness was slipping its tendrils towards him, dark grey like smoke only it had no scent. It slid into his nose and mouth, cool down his throat and he tried not to choke on it. Tried to think of the child he was saving. 

His vision began to blur, but he could still see when a section of Darkness detached itself from the boy that was black instead of grey, and he knew it was this which would take his mind, take his body until all that was left of David Haller was a voice screaming unheard in the back of his brain. 

And through the blurring of his vision, he could see a silver woman with a shining sword which she brought down on the lump of blackness. 

There was a pulse of energy that threw them off their feet. 

David lay on his back and his breath rasped. His throat and sinuses felt like they’d been burned with ice, but he could still feel his fingers, and move them. His mind and body were still his own. 

Then Ruth was standing over him. She made his name sound like a question. “David?” 

He rolled onto his side, coughing. “Yeah, it’s me.” 

She helped him up, and her hand was warm. “I think I killed it. The Darkness.” 

David looked down at the other Vessel, who was sitting up and coughing considerably more than David had been. He looked to be Middle-Eastern, with scars at the sides of his mouth, and he was painfully young. 

“You okay kid?” 

The boy looked up at him with wide eyes. “I – think so.” He was wearing jeans and socks and a t-shirt, all of them rent and torn by the Darkness. 

David looked down at himself. He was still wearing the suit, his body wrapped in shadow. Once he’d noticed that, he began to notice other things. “I think…” he said, and he drew away from Ruth slightly. He waved his hand over the rubble caused by the blast, and it moved at his command. David looked over at Ruth. “I think I got its powers. Like, you killed the Darkness, but it had already put its powers in me so they stayed.” 

“Yeah,” said a new voice, “That sounds about right.” 

David and Ruth turned to face the newcomer. “Megan?” 

The fairy crossed her arms. “Yeah, it’s me. And you two – do you have any idea how furious the fae are with the two of you! You’ve messed it all up. There’s meant to be an epic battle between Darkness and Light, and between the two of you, you killed it in what? Five minutes? Less?” 

David stepped forward. “You don’t get to criticise us. Me and Ruth – we were mean to be done with all this Powers-of-Light, Powers-of-Darkness shit. That’s the way it’s always been; once you’ve been a Vessel once, you’re done.” 

Megan shrugged. “Policy change in the fae courts. They decided that they’re not using kids anymore, so the age of Choosing is twenty-four now, and you two were the best candidates out there. Ruth’s still a quirky stammerer, and David’s still a complete outcast.” 

“Oh god…” said Ruth. “Oh god – no no no – you never had to use children. We – pardon – everyone always thought that the fae had no choice in picking kids, that the age was, yes, fixed at twelve, but…” 

David’s voice sounded like the afternoon promise of a storm; “You never had to choose kids. You could have chosen adults instead. This whole times you had other candidates, you could have asked permission, you… I was _twelve years old._ ” 

Megan shrugged again. “Humans are cuter when they’re little.” 

“Cuter.” spat David. He thrust out one hand, and tendrils of shadow wrapped themselves around Megan, binding her fast. “Five years in a mental institution for a fucking _aesthetic_. Screw this. Screw the fae. Go back to your masters and tell them that Earth will no longer be their battleground. If the Powers of Darkness and the Powers of Light want to fight it out, they can do it their fucking selves, on their home turf. No more Vessels. No more collateral fucking damage.” 

Megan glanced at Ruth. “She’ll lose her powers.” 

David raised an eyebrow. “Oh really? Because last I checked, she should have lost them when she killed the Darkness. Only that sword of hers is still glowing, so I think that something in your magic went wrong.” 

Ruth nodded. “My powers feel different.” She spread her arms and her suit shifted, frills shrinking to nothing until she looked grown-up; an adult; a woman; a warrior. “I don’t think – thank you, yes – that the Light could take my powers away if they tried.” 

David turned back to Megan. “Take my message to your masters. And let them know that if they ever try to pull this shit again, Ruth and I will be here to stop them. After all, we’ll only be thirty-six.” 

After an intense staring contest with David and Ruth which Megan lost (mainly because David was very determined, and Ruth didn’t have eyes to start with), Megan nodded tersely, and vanished in a puff of pink smoke. 

David turned back to the boy who was still sitting on the ground, looking more than a little struck. “I’ve got the Darkness’ teleportation powers. You want a ride home, kid?” 

*

After David dropped the kid – Evan – back home, he teleported back to his house and stood in front of the mirror for ten minutes until he figured out how to get the suit to disappear, then he pulled on sweatpants and a baggy t-shirt and sat on the sofa, trying to process what he’d just done, his alters buzzing in the back of his mind. 

He’d been that way for at least an hour when there was a knock on the door. 

Police. He wondered how they’d got in until he saw Ruth standing behind them. 

He watched the lead cop take in his sweatpants and bare feet. 

“We just want to take a quick statement, Mr Haller. About what happened back in the city with the Darkness.” 

David tried and failed to hold back a sigh. “Okay.” 

So he told them what happened, and the officer said, “Well I never.” 

“It’s true,” David replied. 

“Yeah it’s just… This thing’s been going on for thousands of years, and we knew it would happen this year, so we had all kinds of crisis training and the like, and then you and the lady managed to finish it in ten minutes with barely any property damage.” 

“If that’s all…” 

“Yeah.” 

The cop behind the one who’d taken the statement cleared her throat. “Um, Mr Haller?” 

“Yeah?” 

She held out her notebook a little nervously. “Could I have your autograph? Please? It’s just, my mom’s a real fan. She went to your last exhibition three times.” 

“Sure, why not.” David signed the pad and handed it back to her. His first ever autograph. 

After the police were gone, Ruth stood on David’s doorstep nervously. “Sorry for letting the cops into your compound. It’s just, they only wanted a statement, and I needed to return your car anyway…” she gestured to where she’d parked it on the driveway, and handed him the keys. “I didn’t know you had a car. It’s nice.” 

“Dad got it for me. I think he hoped that I’d use it to get out more.” David stepped away from the door. “’You want to come in?” 

“Okay.” 

So she went inside and closed the front door and they sat down with cups of tea. “They didn’t mention Evan,” David said. 

“Who?” 

“The kid. His name’s Evan.” 

“Oh, yeah. They asked, but I refused to tell them. Said that he’d had an awful experience and that he deserved anonymity. I said you’d do the same.” 

“Yeah. I would have. His scars might make him recognisable, but hopefully there isn’t clear enough CCTV footage for that.” 

They sat on the sofa and turned on the TV and watched themselves on the news. The CCTV footage of Evan was so blurred that it might as well have been anonymous, and the news readers were focusing more on David and Ruth anyway. 

David got a text from his agent, and he decided to wait until tomorrow to reply. 

Ruth said, “So we’ve got powers now. Any idea what you’ll do with yours?” 

“I’m not sure yet.” 

“I thought I might try and help people.” 

David turned to face her. “Like a superhero? Well, I should probably be getting out of the house more often anyway.” 

“I think I’d like that,” said Ruth. 

They were facing each other, sitting close together, and so Ruth leaned forwards and kissed David softly, and he kissed back, and it had only taken them twelve years to figure that out about each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> David didn’t stick around for the emergency services to arrive because he was wearing a supervillain costume and would definitely have been arrested.
> 
> When it comes to ‘fantasy people choose a child to fight for them’, sure it makes sense for kids’ fiction, but, like… child soldiers. Those are child soldiers, and that’s a bad thing.
> 
> Ruth’s outfit is sort of Sailor Moon/reboot!She-Ra-esque, and after she transforms it it’s more like what she wears at the end of X-Men Legacy (2012). David’s outfit is very much ‘anime villain from an anime that I haven’t watched’.
> 
> Evan is of course Evan Sabahnur. Because he’s human in this I made him Middle Eastern, and the scars on his face are in the style of a Glasgow smile. The implication here is that he’s almost as much of an outcast as David due to his race and facial scarring, making him a desirable Vessel for the Darkness.
> 
> Charles got David a black Bentley because of course he did.


End file.
